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A 71-year-old grandmother has been sent to a maximum security prison for six months by the secretive Court of Protection after she defied a council’s demands over care arrangements for an elderly man.

The 81-year-old, who lived in England for 50 years, is in a care home on the Algarve where his relatives insist he is living happily.

She had not broken any laws in taking the man back to his native country, but Devon county council went to court to have him declared mentally incompetent, and a Court of Protection judge ordered her to sign papers authorising his return to the UK.

When she refused to do so, saying he wanted to stay in Portugal, the Court of Protection found her in contempt of court and last month imposed a six-month jail sentence.

HMP BronzefieldCredit:
PA

Mr Justice Newton said: "I am left with no alternative but to pass a sentence of imprisonment, however much I have made it perfectly clear."

She is now in HMP Bronzefield, a Category A prison in Surrey where previous inmates include Rosemary West.

It is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the Court of Protection, which sits largely in secret but which must publish details of any case in which it imprisons someone.

The man at the centre of the case was living on his own at his house in Devon when he was diagnosed with vascular dementia.

A cell inside Bronzefield prisonCredit:
PA

In 2014 he moved in with Ms K at her small home in Sussex so that she could sell his house and use the money to buy a larger property.

A neighbour alerted Devon county council to the move, and in April 2015 a social worker recommended that the man should be brought back to Devon to live in a care home, and a judge ruled that he did not have the mental capacity to make decisions for himself.

The council obtained a court order freezing his assets, including the house.

Ms K decided to take the man to Portugal the same month, where he was hospitalised because of his dementia and moved into a care home in September last year.

A series of court hearings followed over the next year, but Ms K refused to sign papers releasing him to the care of the county council.

Ms K’s solicitor Shahana Begum said: “There has been a vast amount of public money wasted on this case without achieving anything that is going to be beneficial for this man. Any move at this stage is likely to result in his death.”

A spokesman for Devon county council said: “In this case, Ms K wilfully refused to comply with orders of the court and such refusal gave the Judge little choice but to send her to prison.

"At all times, the paramount concern for Devon county council is the welfare of the vulnerable adult for whom it has responsibility.”